Chapter Text
Dib had already decided to leave when he was halfway through 10th grade, all he had to do was wait. He collected money however he could in the meantime, unfortunately for him "paranormal investigator" wasn't exactly a stable job, it's closer to being a freelance detective without all the money that comes with paranoid spouses. Instead he had started working part time at a place called Blookies while attending Hi-skool, despite his father's protests that he should take a job at Membrane Labs with him. In the weeks leading up to graduation Dib was packing his things into garbage bags so he'd be ready to start moving as soon as he turned 18 and bought a place to stay. He'd thought of "borrowing" Zim's voot cruiser to make the trips faster, since the runner had mysteriously disappeared, but Zim was playing nice lately and Dib didn't want to start any new fights right now if he didn't have to.
Three days before graduation and he was ready to go, everything but furniture was packed in his room and he'd kept his door shut whenever his dad came home so he'd stay clueless. He had managed to strike a deal with a realtor for a house on the other side of the city he could afford, even if it did have a bad reputation to make it that cheap. Dib didn't care how haunted it could be, he'd faced worse than ghosts. As he started packing bags into his beater car, Gaz came out of her room to see what he was doing. The noise of the creaking stairs had distracted her from the game she was playing and she was about to yell at him to keep it down when she saw him moving bags.
"How much garbage do you have?" She asked.
"A lot. You never know how much you own until you have to take it all somewhere." He joked, trying to act nonchalant. In reality he hadn't mean to get caught leaving, he had hoped Gaz would be too busy with her game to notice or busy at work, since she had recently gotten a job at an electronic repair shop to fund her own electronic hobbies, to which their father again protested until she told him she wanted the experience fixing phones to be ready to fix bigger things in the lab someday.
"So you're leaving already then?" She asked but it was more of a statement than a real question. As Dib looked at his sister, he suddenly felt the urge to cry. As much as they fought as kids he truly did care about her, and he felt bad leaving her alone now. She was a year and a half younger than him, but he couldn't remember the time he'd lived without her.
"How did you know?" He asked back, his eyes stayed on the floor, he couldn't bear to look her in the eyes.
"You've been hogging the garbage bags for a month straight, but I sorta thought you'd wait until after graduation." She said matter of factly.
"I'm sorry Gaz, I was gonna tell you when I was done getting my stuff out, I really did want to give you a proper goodbye." He said guiltily, worried that she'd be mad at him for leaving without saying anything.
"Dad's gonna be pissed you know." She said, and yeah Dib already knew that.
"That's why I have to get things moved before he comes home. I'm taking the furniture tomorrow." He said curtly. "Please, don't tell him." He added more softly.
"I won't, he'd be extra pissed to find out I'm coming with you." She replied with a grin. Dib couldn't believe what his sister just said.
"Wait really? What about Hi-skool? You can't just drop out!" He questioned her, though somewhere in the back of his mind he was happy that he wouldn't be as alone as he initially thought.
"I can drive myself if you let me borrow the car for my last year." She answered. "You didn't really think I'd work for Membrane Labs after Skool ends, did you?" She asked with a smile. Dib gave it a moment of thought before nodding with a determined look.
"How much do you have to pack?" He asked.
"Not much, got all my closet bagged yesterday and other than that I kind of just want my games." She told him.
"Alright, put your bags in the car and then pack up whatever else you can tonight and we'll take it tomorrow." He said, taking more of his own bags out while Gaz went back to her room to grab hers.
Gaz spent the rest of the night unplugging her gaming set ups and grabbing any other last minute items she'd decided to keep. Meanwhile Dib drove back and forth a couple times with his own stuff. When he had all his bags at the new place he went back to his old room that looked so much emptier now and spent the rest of the evening on his bed with his computer. As soon as Skool ended the next day Dib and Gaz rented a trailer and loaded their furniture and the rest of Gaz's things before driving to the new place to unload it all. They moved quickly but they still weren't done by the time the sun began to set.
"Give me your keys and unhook the trailer." Gaz said, holding out her hand.
"Why?" Dib asked.
"Cause if we're both gone when dad gets home he's smart enough to wonder why. I'll tell him I dropped you off at work since it's close." She explained. Dib looked up at the sky turning colors, then handed over the keys and unhooked the trailer to finish unpacking it by himself.
"I'll return it tomorrow morning before class." He decided.
The night before graduation Dib is laying on the floor of his room with nothing but a pillow and a cheap throw blanket, watching Mysterious Mysteries on his phone in low resolution with his door locked. He'll be gone tomorrow. As he lays there he thinks of his life here, the things that changed, the things that didn't. Gaz had said at dinner that she was going to have a sleepover, though Dib had no clue who she'd stay with, she never had many friends that he knew of outside of a screen. Although she was still antisocial on the best of days Gaz had also changed over the years, her annoyance at life itself seemed to fade and while she could still be mean when she wanted to she wasn't as volatile and violent as she once was. She had developed some small sense of empathy she seemed to lack as a kid, but he didn't worry about her either, he knew she could still fight if she had to. Then he thought of Zim, his enemy who he'd had countless fights with over the years, yet he had changed too in small ways. He had grown slightly, though he was still short, his temper had also seemed to ebb over time, his plans though still a threat were more easy to foil or perhaps Dib had gotten better at foiling? He couldn't really tell now that he thought of it. In the past year, their last in Hi-skool together, they fought less. Though there were still some fights, Zim seemed more willing to listen this year than he ever had been before, probably to gather information better. Dib couldn't help but feel like they were closer to being begrudging friends than enemies now. Then Dib thought of his father, a man who never believed in him or cared what he thought. Membrane was a man who never changed, with an ego so massive you could see it from space and everyone loved him for it. Except Dib. He had once looked up to that man, once cared what he thought, once gave up everything for his affection that was so very rare. But he realized he wasn't himself anymore, he was a dog following orders, and then he was a rat digging for scraps. Membrane had never thought of him as a person, barely even remembered his name most days, he was nothing but a toy, meant to someday be a passed down legacy, a cog in the machine. In his father's eyes he knew he'd only ever be seen as a failure, because he wouldn't be a clone living the rest of his life in Membrane Labs no matter how many times he was punished for being himself. Dib wouldn't sit there and become an obedient pet. No, he would bite. That thought brought a smile back to his face.
The day of his graduation Dib didn't attend it. He told a teacher halfway through the day he was sick and left his keys with Gaz before walking out. He didn't really think about where he was going, just that he didn't want to be around to see the tantrum his father threw if he even bothered to show up. He wasn't going home either, his new place was a far walk from here and his old one was about to turn into a war zone. So he let his legs carry him, lost in thought for a while, until he realized where he was. The odd colors of Zim's "house" catching his eye. He watched Gir through the window, running in circles with his green dog costume on that honestly looked nothing like a real dog. He wondered if Zim would be at graduation or in his lab working on some new world ender, after all he had been unusually quiet for a while, which usually meant trouble. Then a voice behind him startled him out of his thoughts again.
"What are you doing here?" A question that would normally be full of suspicion and malice was instead phrased with a strangely calm curiosity.
"I..." he paused, trying to come up with some excuse, before giving up and just telling the truth. "I didn't want to go to graduation."
"Yeah, me neither." Zim replied casually, and Dib thought his volume had gone down over the years too, or maybe it was just that he yelled less when he wasn't fighting. Zim strolled right past him to his base, then a few seconds later Dib saw the glowing eyes of the gnomes that guarded his yard turn off, the bright red lights turning dull. He didn't have it in him right now to question why and just followed Zim inside. It was always strange walking into Zim's base. The place smelled like an odd mix of sugar and citrus with a slight tang of metal underneath. The metal made sense seeing as the base was basically one giant computer, so did the sugar considering how much of it Zim ate, he likely carried that scent himself. But the lemon scent always seemed strangely out of character, if water was too acidic for Irkens he doubted anything sour would be pleasant. It was one of the many oddities he noticed over time.
Gir greeted him with a shriek, and Dib noted that he never changed either, though he was harmless in that. Gir was like a mix between a rowdy toddler that would never grow up and a wild rodent that ate out of trash cans and chewed through old walls. His bright colored dog costume was often sticky and smelled like a few brands of junk food.
"So, why are you here?" Zim repeated. "I thought the Dib-beast liked his human base." He added, and somewhere in Dib's mind there's a faint memory of him arguing that he likes his house more, but that was a long time ago.
"It's called a house, Zim." He corrected, though he wasn't in the mood to start an argument over the alien's failed English. "And that's not exactly true." He continued, and Zim's head cocked to the side, his terrible disguise wig tipping slightly off his head to reveal his antenna.
"I'm actually moving, Gaz is coming too. That's why I'm avoiding graduation, and the house you'd know. I don't want to be there when dad finds out we're leaving." He explained, words tumbling out before he could stop himself.
"Hm, but Zim thought you cared for your father unit?" Zim questioned, still seeming oddly calm about the whole thing.
"I used to, but the more I grew up the more I realized he's not the great guy I once thought he was, he's nothing but a smart jerk who treats me like shit. The longer I'm there the worse it gets and he wants me to work at his lab after graduation, but I won't do it. I can't just sit there and take it anymore, I won't be the next Membrane, I'm leaving and never going back to that house." Dib said, more sure now that he was saying it out loud. He didn't know why he was pouring his heart out to Zim of all people, but in a way saying it out loud felt like lifting a weight he didn't know he was carrying. Zim, who had been listening with interest, took off his disguise, his magenta eyes looked at him with an emotion that was hard to place for a moment before he responded.
"Zim knows what it's like to not want to be..." he trailed off mid sentence, looking lost. Dib had never thought much about Zim's home planet as anything but a threat, but it was home to him, maybe that was why he became slightly docile over the years. Was Zim homesick? With that thought Dib had two realizations at once. First: If Zim didn't like it here, he could leave. He had gone to human Skool to learn about humanity so there wasn't much more need for him to stay if he wasn't happy here, and second: that he would miss Zim when he left. He hadn't expected to care so much. Zim was supposed to be a threat that he'd do anything to get rid of, but as he watched him now sadly staring at the blank TV screen in front of the couch, he knew he wanted Zim to both fly away and stay right here. He never thought he'd want Zim to be happy or want him around and yet seeing Zim of all people be sad felt like watching a plane crash and knowing everyone on board, it hurt him in a way he couldn't even put words to yet. So he didn't, they stayed silent until gir shoved a slice of pizza towards Zim's face and he yelled at him to get it away. That was the Zim that Dib remembered. Once he stopped struggling with Gir he gave Dib a serious look.
"Where are you going?" Zim asked, and Dib wasn't expecting Zim to care where he went. Zim was talking again before he could answer. "Zim will take you in the voot, I need to check the navigation is working correctly anyway." He added, already getting up to walk towards the hidden elevator that would take him to the cruiser and Dib jumped off the couch to follow him.
They flew to the other side of the city and Dib pointed at his new place. Gaz must have beat him there, he could already see his car in the driveway. Zim landed in the back yard and Dib got out just as Gaz came to the door, she gave Zim a quizical look but said nothing. Dib took a deep breath, waved goodbye to Zim and stepped into his new home. For the first time he could remember, he felt free.